In a bid to bridge the healthcare gap for the destitute and medical services, leading hospital chain Paras Healthcare has announced the launch of Paras Sarthi — a unique healthcare delivery platform based on a CSR funding-focused aggregator model to provide quality medical care services to the needy and underprivileged.  Paras Sarthi is a unique initiative of Paras Healthcare that provides guidance and a participating platform to corporates to associate together for healthcare social responsibility initiatives. The program offers guidance, participation programs and impact report to the corporates to highlight their contribution towards the CSR Legislation.

The announcement was made by Dr. Dharminder Nagar, Managing Director, Paras Healthcare, on the occasion of the 2018 edition of CSR Health Impact Awards, in the presence of Chief Guest Shri Vijay Goel, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs.    

Highlighting the need for healthcare focused CSR initiative, Dr. Dharminder Nagar said, “The healthcare scene is challenging for the poor, with 70% of tertiary care hospitals located in urban regions and catering to 30% of urban population. Around 75% dispensaries, 60% hospitals, and 80% doctors are located in urban areas. However, we also see hope as increasingly we find individuals and organizations coming forward with innovative and impactful CSR-based initiatives directed towards health. The challenge lies in the dearth of reliable medium to implement their ideas in a manner that actually benefits the people on the ground.”

Introducing Paras Sarthi, Dr. Dharminder Nagar said, “Backed by our partners for health, Paras Sarthi, a not-for-profit initiative, will metamorphose ongoing efforts of Paras Healthcare into a high-impact collaborative movement to deliver advanced healthcare interventions to the most underserved sections of the society. Using our established capabilities of delivering quality healthcare, we wish to bring about a change in healthcare scenario of the country where the poorest of the poor can have a realistic chance of accessing quality healthcare. The Paras Sarthi initiative is based on a CSR-aggregator model, which will engage individuals and organizations the ways and means to make a difference and collectively finance medical care, while Paras Healthcare shall be contributing to the initiative by only charging the cost incurred in the treatment of the patient. All overhead costs will be removed for the services given under this initiative.”

As the pilot project, the platform will be tested in all cities and regions in reach of Paras Healthcare. The leading hospital chain is spread across 5 regions in Delhi NCR, Haryana, Bihar, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.  The underprivileged sections of the society will benefit from the host of services cancer, gynecology, pediatric surgery, cardiology, and neurosurgery.   

“Any organization that wants to take up CSR-based initiatives faces the challenges of determining the cost of the initiative, the right means of spending the CSR fund, the right partner for impactful implementation, the right tools to measure impact, sustainability and scalability of the initiative. Paras Sarthi becomes the one-stop reliable partner for implementing sustainable and scalable initiative with direct measurable impact and transparent assessment of cost and expenditure. Paras Healthcare is funding the initial corpus of the initiative and we will be setting an annual target to effectively mobilize our resources. To ensure the platform is ready and operational at the earliest, we are in talks with multiple stakeholders, including corporate and NGOs, to create a broad network. After the success of the pilot, the larger vision is to take this model pan-India.” Dr. Dharminder Nagar explained.

Companies have reportedly spent a whopping Rs 2240 crore in healthcare in the FY 2016-17 as per the national CII Annual CSR Tracker 2017 report. Crowd funding for a cause’ is also growing fast in India with around 300 cr raised in the last FY with substantial portion for medical procedures.

Pumped by the flow of funds in the CSR domain and supported by a new generation of socially conscious people who wish to contribute to the society, Paras Healthcare is driven towards making ‘Saving a Life’ as everyone’s mission.